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THE TRUTH
ABOUT INDIAN OPIUM
BY
G. GRAHAM DIXON.
Printed for and issued by
THE INDUSTRIES AND OVERSEAS DEPARTMENT,
INDIA OFFICE, WHITEHALL, S.W. 1.
Printed by His MA.II.STVS STATIONERY OFFICE.
1922.
(S-
THE TRUTH ABOUT INDIAN OPIUM.
DOCUMENT
DEPT.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I. The Royal Commission on Opium in India 1
CHAPTER II. The Production of Opium in India - 4
CHAPTER III. The Consumption of Opium in India
CHAPTER IV. Opium Smoking in India proper and Burma 13
CHAPTER V. The Export of Opium from India - 16
CHAPTER VI. The Hague Convention 29
CHAPTER VII. The Position of India in relation to the World's
Opium Problem'
BIBLIOGRAPHY 4i!
TABLES.
Acreage under poppy in British India and Indian States, with statistics
of opium production - - 7 S
Consumption of opium in British India, Excise Revenue, issue price of
excise opium, and quantities that individuals may possess -
Quantities of prepared opium that individuals may possess - 14
Number of chests and destinations of opium exported during the
period 1870-1920 -
Revenue from sales of opium for export
Comparative table showing opium revenue in relation to gross
revenues of British India - - - - - - 29
THE TRUTH ABOUT INDIAN OPIUM.
CB AFTER I.
THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON OPIUM IN INDIA.
In India, apart from Burma, which will be discussed
separately, opium is general]} 7 eaten in the form of pills, and
in some parts it is dissolved iiTwater and drunk. It is the
ordinary domestic medicine of the people, great numbers of
whom are unaccustomed to, or beyond the reach of, skilled
medical treatment, and it is a medicine of which they could
not be deprived without very great suffering. It is largely
used in the malarial tracts as a prophylactic against fever,
and is a great aid to endurance ; the fisherman swallows
his opium pill before entering the water, just as his European
brother carries his whisky flask, and the carrier eats opium
when on the march. The drug has been commonly employed
for hundreds of years, and abuse of its properties is rarer than
the abuse of alcohol in Western countries. 1
The danger of indulgence always exists, and for many
years it has been the policy of the Government of India to
guard against this in every possible way. It is the aim of
this paper to explain the steps which they have taken .and the
results which have been achieved.
Opium smoking, which is the common form of consumption
in other parter of the East,- is on a different footing in India.
It is a practice foreign to the country, and was introduced as a
form of social indulgence among the disreputable classes. It is
regarded as a vicious habit, much on a par with the consump-
tion of alcohol, and has been hedged round by Government
with restrictions which are little short of prohibition.
The consumption of opium in India dates probably from
the 16th century, and a monopoly of the purchase of opium from
the cultivators grew up in Bihar under the Mughal Empire.
At that time cultivation in other parts of India was apparently
unrestricted. The Empire lost hold of the monopoly daring
the anarchy of the 18th century, but it was carried on in
1 There is an essential difference between the drug: problem in India, and in
Europe and America. These latter countries are principally concerned with the
problems presented by the vicious consumption of cocaine and morphia, concen-
trated drugs far more potent than opium, and it is on the experience of the
abuse of these drugs tint much of the condemnation of Indian policy is based.
It may be said that the effects of the consumption of opium in Europe and
America are hardly less disastrous than those of morphia and cocaine. That is
so, but the reason is that to Americans and Europeans opium is an unaccustomed
stimulant. The habit being both new and strange, it is never used in moderation,
but invariably abused, and the results cannot be compared with the results of
moderate opium eating in India. Opium in the West is as dangerous as alcohol
in the East, and for the same reason. It has not been suggested that the evil
effects of alcohol in Africa afford a sound argument in favour of prohibition in
England.
4983 2000 4.22 A 2
practice by a "ring" of Patmi merchants. When the East
India Company assumed responsibility for the collection of the
Bengal and Bihar revenues in 1765, its servants appropriated
the monopoly for their own private benefit, and the prevailing
corruption continued. Disturbances ensued, and Avlien
Warren Hastings was appointed Governor-General in 1773
.and given power to organise a proper system of government,
he found himself compelled, in pursuance of his policy of
depriving the Company's servants of the right of private trade,
to assume control of the opium monopoly.
At first the right to manufacture opium was farmed out on
contract, but this led to oppression of the cultivators, and the
system broke down, with the result that in 1797 Government
assumed the monopoly of manufacture. This measure, which
included restriction and prohibition of cultivation except under
licence, and extended to nearly all Northern India as it came into
British possession, resulted in smuggling and clandestine pro-
duction for local use, and attention was thus directed for the first
time to the demand for opium in India itself, which it was found
impossible to suppress. Accordingly there was passed in 1813
the first Bengal Regulation regarding consumption in India,
/ the Government enunciating their policy of restricting the
f habit of opium eating by obtaining the maximum revenue from
the minimum consumption, and declaring that they were
desirous of countenancing only to the narrowest extent possible
a habrt which they found themselves unable to eradicate.
This policy has never been lost sight of.
As a result of the activities of the Society for the Sup-
pression of the Opium Trade, a Rcyal Commission was
appointed in 18&S to enquire into all the circumstances con-
nected with the production and sale of Indian opium, and the
Society itself recorded the opinion that the appointment consti-
tuted " the greatest and , most solid forward step that the
*' movement for the suppression of the opium trade has yet
" made," and considered that the Commission was "as fair-
u minded and impartial a tribunal as the Society could have
" desired to hear its case."
The results of the Commission's labours were published in
1895 in seven volumes, which can be procured by anyone who
flesires to acquaint himself with the real facts regarding opium
in India. Since 1895 consumption has declined, but the
findings of the Commission still stand as a complete justification
of the Government's policy.
The Commission examined with very great care the
question of the consumption of opium in India, and found that
in all provinces a limit was placed on the amount of opium, or
preparations of opium, which might be sold to any individual,
or of which a person might be legally in possession, at any
one time, and that the average annual consumption for the
whole of British India amounted to 27 grains per head.
As regards the use of opium and its effects, the Commis-
sion stated that opium was universally believed in as a common
domestic medicine, special value being attached to its use in
cases of fever and as a protection against malaria. As a
stimulant, it was held in esteem as a specific against old
age, many men of failing health taking the drug for periods
varying from 15 to 50 years, and apparently obtaining benefit
from the habit. It was also habitually used in many parts of
India during the extremes of the winter months, and for the
purpose of resisting fatigue in the case of journeys and hard
physical labour. In Rajputana the use of opium in connection
Avith social and ceremonial functions had acquired a quasi-
religious sanction.
With reference to the consumption of opium in the Indian
army, the Commission concluded that the number of soldiers
accustomed to take opium to a harmful extent was insignificant,
that its use in the army was often beneficial, and that any
attempt to limit consumption would be highly unpopular.
As regards the general physical and moral effects of the
use of opium, the Commission found that hard work, energy
and thrift existed side by side with the opium habit ; that it
was unheard of for workmen to be dismissed on account of
opium excess, though alcoholic excess was a constant source of
trouble ; and that the largest Indian insurance company had
not found it necessary to impose any extra premium on the lives
of moderate opium consumers. They were of opinion that the
opium habit did not lead to insanity, crime, or suicide, and
they finally concluded that the use of opium among the people
in British Provinces was, as a rule a a moderate use, and was not
attended by injurious consequences. Excess was exceptional,
and condemned by public opinion.
The Commission were emphatic when they came to deal
with the suggestion that the use of opium in India could be
limited to strictly medical needs. They remarked that it was
generally admitted that the limitation of cultivation and the
monopoly of manufacture and wholesale supply, constituted the
most restrictive position, short of prohibition, which the Govern-
ment could adopt towards internal consumption. No distinct
line was drawn in popular opinion between the medical uses of
the drug and those which cannot be strictly so-called, and it
would be impracticable to issue opium only on the prescription
of medical practitioners. Further, the Commission were con-
vinced that the great mass of Indian opinion was opposed to
the proposal as an unnecessary restriction on ^individual liberty
and an interference with established customs and habits. Apart
from the religious question, Indians generally considered the
use of alcohol to be more open to objection in itself, more
injurious, and more disgraceful.
The Report of the Commission remains unchallenged on
points of fact, and evidence that the situation in India has not
undergone retrograde developments is afforded by tlie fact that
in 1920 the per capita consumption of opium in the British
provinces was 26 grains, slightly less than the figure at which it
stood 30 years ago. Moreover, if it were possible to ascertain
the amount of opium used for veterinary purposes, this figure
would without doubt, be smaller still. There are 150 million
cattle and horses in British India.
CHAPTER II.
THE PRODUCTION OF OPIUM IN INDIA.
The chief difficulty with which the Government of India
have had to cope in carrying out their policy of controlling
opium production and confining the use of the drug within the
narrowest possible limits, has been the fact that from the point
of view of administration India consists of two parts British
India, under the direct control of the Government of India,
comprising an area of a imTTion square miles and a population
of 24:7 millions, and the more or less autonomous Indian
States, with a total area of 675,000 square miles and a
population of 71,000,000. For over a century the Govern-
ment of India have been gradually acquiring control over
the production, transport and sale of opium throughout
this vast area. So far as British India is concerned, they
have concentrated cultivation within restricted areas, and
have included all the provinces in the same general system
in respect of transport ancf sale. As regards the Indian
States, the problem of production and internal consumption
could only be dealt with by negotiation, and several States have
agreed to prohibit poppy cultivation within their territories.
The opium produced by the others can only pass through
British India on behalf of the Government of India, or of
some other State which has received permission from the
Government of India to obtain a specified quantity for its internal
consumption.
Throughout the whole of British India (apart from certain
inaccessible tracts on the Burmese frontier) the cultivation of
opium is regulated by Act No. XIII. of 1857 (as amended by
Act No. I. of 1911), and Act No. I. of 1878. Under those Acts
the cultivation of the poppy within British India is permissible
only under a licence ; the total area to be sown is fixed by
the Government From year to year ; and the licence specifies
the exact area which the licensee may cultivate. With the
exception of the Punjab, where the people are allowed to plant
a small area with poppy and to sell the opium direct to
licensed vendors, the cultivator is bound to sell the whole of
his produce to the Government at a fixed rate.
Advances of money are made to the cultivator in accordance
with the established practice at the time the production of
opium became a Government monopoly, but these amount at
the present day to about Us. a year in the case of each
cultivator. No cultivator grows poppy unless he wishes. If
he desires to raise some other crop he can obtain an advance of
money to assist him to do so.
The crude opium is sent to the Government factory at
Ghazipur, and is there made up into raw opium in two forms :
opium intended for export to foreign countries, known as
" provision " opium, owing to the fact that the proceeds of sale
were originally intended to provide funds for Indian trans-
actions with China, and opium intended for consumption in
India, known as " excise " opium. Provision opium is made
up in the form of balls or cakes, each weighing 3f ]bs., and is
packed in chests, each chest containing 40 cakes and weighing
140f Ibs. Excise opium is made up in cubical packets, each
weighing 2^V Ibs., 60 of which are packed in a case. A
notification is published annually, generally before the month
of October, stating the number of chests of export opium which
will be auctioned at Calcutta, in each month of the next
calendar year, and sales are conducted month by month by
the Government of Bengal.
Apart from the production of opium, the poppy is valuable
in other ways. The seed is exported in large quantities to
Belgium, France and the United Kingdom for the- expression
of oil, and is also used as an article of food. The crop is
sown in the autumn and gathered in the spring, usually
succeeding an autumn crop of Indian corn ; and in addition to
opium each acre yields about 260 Ibs. of seed and 80 Ibs. to
100 Ibs. of oil. The total area to be cultivated in any one }^ear
is decided by a calculation of the amount required for internal
consumption and the amount to be exported to foreign
countries. Production of the opium is controlled~~lT5r- w the
opium department, which had formerly two agencies, . one
stationed at Patna in the province of Bihar and Orissa, and the
other at Ghazipur, in the United Provinces. Consequent, how-
ever, on the large reductions made in the export trade, it was
found possible to combine the two agencies into one, and in
1911 the Patna agency was abolished.
The area cultivated under the Bengal monopoly system has
been reduced from 642,831 acres in 1903-04 to 163,125 acres in 1
1919-20, and the amount of opium produced has fallen from i
10,227,867 Ibs. in 1902-03 to 1,876,114 Ibs. in 1919-20. Since *
opium may only be grown for the Government, and the operations
from start to finish are rigidly supervised by Government
officers, the control exercised under this monopoly system is the
most restrictive, short of total prohibition, that it is possible to
devise.
6
An increase in the area under cultivation does not
necessarily indicate an increased production of opium, and a
decrease in area usually represents a more than proportionate
decrease in production. The reason for this is that poppy
cultivation tends to desert the more fertile lands, with the
result that the quantity of juice obtained from each acre falls.
In former days an acre of poppy usually produced 16 Ibs. of
opium, but at the present time the figure is only 12 Ibs. The
diminution and final cessation of the trade to China led
the Government of India to decrease the area very rapidly,
and eventually it was found that the supply was beginning
to fall short of the demand. The seriousness of the position
was increased by the British Government's requirements
of opium for medical purposes in connection with the
war. This immediate demand was met partly by a diversion
of the allotment reserved for the ordinary trade and partly by
depleting . the reserve stocks kept in view of possible bad
seasons ; while the main shortage was partly met by the
purchase of some of the 60,000 chests of manufactured opium
left on the hands of the Feudatory States after the China markets
were finally closed, and by taking a certain supply of the raw
article from those States in accordance with arrangements
entered into with them, in order to compensate them in part
for their loss of the China trade. But this did not fill the gap,
and the Government therefore decided to enlarge the area
under cultivation. This phase came to an end in 1918, and
since that year the area cultivated under Government control
has considerably diminished, the deficiency being made up by
purchases from the States.
The principal States which produce opium (known in this
connection as the Malwa States) are the States of the Central
India and the Rajputana Agencies, and Baroda. These States,
in addition to producing opium for their own internal con-
sumption, exported large quantities to China until the
Government of India prohibited export to that country in
1913. It has been stated that the highest area ever cultivated
was 562,000 acres, and in the latter years of the 19th century
the yearly average was about 400,000 acres, producing some
54,000 chests of opium. From that time the area steadily
decreased, owing to the competition in China of enormous
quantities of Chinese grown opium, and this made it possible
to stop the trade with China with less dislocation and hardship
than would otherwise have been the case. But the States have
never been completely reconciled to a policy which has meant
serious financial loss to them, although the Government of
India have assisted by purchasing from them certain quantities
of opium upon their agreeing to bring into fresh cultivation
only the area required for that purpose.
The following table shows the area cultivated under Govern-
ment control since 1905-06, and the quantities of provision
opium manufactured at the Ghazipur factory. It will be
remembered that a chest of provision or export opium contains
140| Ibs., arid a chest of excise opium, for consumption in
British India, 123-?- Ibs. :-
Chests of
Provision
Year. Acreage. Opium made.
1905-06 613,996 48,750
1906-07 564,585 38,126
1907-08 188,548 40,001
1908-09 361,832 28,125
1909-10 354,577 29,000
1910-11 362,868 15,000
1911-12 200,672 14,000
1912-13 178,263 7,000
,1913-14 144,561 12,000
1914-15 164,911 10,000
1915-16 167,155 12,000
1916-17 204,186 12,000
1917-18 207,010 14,499
1918-19 - 177,124 12,500
1919-20 163,125
1920-21 (estimated) 143,750
Opium purchased from the Malwa States is used only for
the manufacture of excise opium, and is not exported. 60,000
chests of opium were left on the hands of the States when the
China trade came to an end, and in order to ease the
position the Government of India have bought the following
quantities :
Excise Chests of Excise Chests of
Year. 123f Ibs. Year. - 123f Ibs.
1912-13 4,163 1916-17 - 5,257
1913-14 7,001 1917-18 - 4,916
1914-15 9,034 1918-19 - 5,314
1915-16 - 13,990
There also has to be taken into account the produce of the
area specially cultivated in order to supply the deficiency in the
United Provinces output. The acreage cultivated under these
arrangements has been as follows :
Production in Excise
Year. Acres. Chests of 123'- Ibs.
1916-17
1917-18
1918-19
1919-20
1920-21
14,695 2,223
26,479 2,315
10,350 1,200
30,813 1,803
84,000 (about) 2,835
All these sources have contributed to maintain the supply
of excise opium at the necessary level during recent, years.
I
8
The number of chests manufactured to supply the demands
of British India since 1905-00 are shown below :
Kxcise Chests of Excise Chests of
Year. I2f Ibs. Year. 123f Ibs.
1905-06 5,635 1912-13 9,947
1906-07 6,263 1913-14 - 8,307
1907-08 11,229 1914-1 f> 8,943
1908-09 5,770 1915-16 8,391
1909-10 7,172 1916-17 8,732
1910-11 8,611 1917-18 <S,567
1911-12 9,126 1918-19 8,512
The Indian States of course continue to produce opium for
their internal requirements, but the effect of the cessation of
export to China can be seen from the following figures, which
represent the total area under cultivation, inclusive in the
later years of the acreage cultivated on account of the Govern-
ment of India :
Acres under
cultivation in
Indian States.
12,277
15,320
10,568
46,441
54,341
24.871
56,934
CHAPTER III.
THE CONSUMPTION OF OPIUM IN INDIA.
The attitude of the Government of India towards the
general question of opium consumption was well expressed by
the following passage in a Despatch addressed to the Secretary
of State by Lord Hardinge's Government in 1911 : l
" The prohibition of opium-eating in India we regard as
impossible, and any attempt at it as fraught with the most
serious consequences to the people and the Government. We
take our stand unhesitatingly on the conclusion of the Royal
Commission which reported in 1895, viz., that the opium habit
as a vice scarcely exists in India, that opium is extensively used
for non-medical and quasi-medical purposes, in some cases with
benefit, and for the most part without injurious consequences ;
that the non-medical uses are so interwoven with the medical
1 This passage was quoted in the Despatch from the Government of India,
dated the 24th March 1921, which was published in the supplement to the Gazette
of India, dated the 17th September 1921.
Acres under
cultivation in
Year.
Indian States.
Year.
1905-06
- 146,677
J 913-14
1906-07
- 246,911
1914-15
1907- 08
191,714
1915-16
1908-09
- 134,629
1916-17
1909-10
- 108,973
1917-18
1910-11
- 147,262
1918-19
1911-12
71,983
1919-20
1912-13
47,143
9
uses that it would not be practicable to draw a distinction
between them in the distribution and sale of the drug : and
that it is not necessary that the growth of the poppy and the
manufacture and sale of opium in British India should be pro-
hibited except for medical purposes. Whatever may be the
case in other countries, centuries of inherited experience have
taught the people of India, discretion in the use of the drug,
and its misuse is a negligible feature in Indian Hfe. Even if it
were possible to suppress the cultivation of opium in India,
geographical and political limitations would place it beyond
our power to prevent illicit import and consumption on. a serious
scale " ; and again : " The great majority of Indian opium-eaters
are not slaves to the habit. They take small doses as required
and can and do give up the allowance when the need of it is
past. Opium is in virtually universal use throughout India as
the commonest and most treasured of the household remedies
accessible to the people. It is taken to avert or lessen fatigue,
as a specific in bowel complaints, as a prophylactic against
malaria (for which its relatively high anarcotine content makes
it specially valuable), to lessen the quantity of sugar in diabetes,
and generally to allay pain in sufferers of all ages. The vast
bulk of the Indian population, it '. must be remembered, are
strangers to the ministrations of qualified doctors or druggists.
They are dependent almost entirely on the herbal simples of the
country; distance and * the patient acceptance of hardships
standing in the way of prompt access to skilled medical relief.
In these circumstances the use of opium in small quantities is
one of the most important aids in the treatment of children's
sufferings. It is also a frequent help to the aged and infirm,
and an alleviation in diseases and accidents which are accepted
as incurable. To prevent the sale of opium except under regular
medical prescription would be a mockery ; to many millions it
would be sheer inhumanity."
Ever since the logic of events compelled the Government
of India over a hundred years ago to recognise that opium- eating
could not be entirely suppressed, and that it was a necessary
element in the lives of the population, they have steadily
pursued a policy of restricting the habit within the narrowest
possible limits. The system they have built up is primarily based
upon the principle of restricting the consumption to legitimate
needs. The abuse of opium is prevented by limiting the
amount of opium which an individual may possess at any one
time, and by a continuous process of raising the price at which
opium is sold to the consumer, only stopping short of the
point at which the object in view would be defeated by the
attraction of smuggling.
The Opium Act, 1878, prohibits the manufacture, posses-
sion, transport, import, export and sale of opium, except as
permitted by rules framed under the Act, and provides for the
confiscation of any opium in regard to which an offence is
committed. Officers of the Excise, Police, Customs, Salt, Opium
10
and Revenue Departments of the proper rank are given powers
of search, seizure and detention. There is also a special ride
prescribing that in prosecutions for breaches of the Act it shall
be presumed, until the contrary is proved, that all opium for
which an accused person is unable to account satisfactorily is
opium in respect to which he has committed an offence under
the Act. The main provisions of the rules made by the different
provinces are uniform. The produce of the poppy cultivated
on Government account must all be delivered to the Govern-
ment Opium Department, and such opium can, therefore, only
be obtained from Government. The produce of the poppy
cultivated by licensed cultivators in the Punjab can only be
sold to licensed vendors and cannot be obtained direct by the
ordinary consumer. Government, or " excise," opium, is issued
only to licensed wholesale or retail vendors. The wholesale
vendor may sell such opium, or opium obtained from a licensed
cultivator, only to other licensed vendors or to licensed drug-
gists ; the retail vendor and the licensed druggist may sell to
, individuals. Thus the individual can obtain opium produced
in India only from a licensed retail vendor or a licensed drug-
gist. Each stage of the distribution down to the retail vendor
is safeguarded by an elaborate system of transport passes, while
the conditions governing the licence of a retail vendor are most
stringent. He may not sell to any one person at one time more
than the quantity of opium which an individual may lawfully
possess ; he may sell only for cash and only on premises for
which he is licensed ; he must not allow consumption on such
premises, and he must keep correct daily accounts of his sales,
which shall be open at all times to inspection by Excise officers.
The number of licensed shops in an area is fixed so as not to
exceed what is necessary to satisfy the moderate needs of
legitimate consumers, and is constantly being reduced as
improvements in communications or other changes in local
circumstances render centralisation of supply more easy. In
the year 1892-93 there were 9,531 opium shops in British India.
\ By 1907-08 these had been reduced to 8,136 ; and the figure now
stands at 6,394. The amount of opium of which an individual
may be in possession varies according to circumstances in the
different provinces, but in most places is either 360 or 540 grains.
Equally strict control is maintained over the supply of
Indian grown opium obtainable from a licensed druggist and
the supply of imported opium. A notification under the Sea
Customs Act, 1878, No. 720-79, dated the 4th February 1911,
prohibits absolutely the import of opium by sea or by land by
means of the post, and restricts its import by other means to
cases in which it is imported by persons permitted to import it
by a Local Government or Administration. The rules as to
import made by Local Governments vary considerably in detail,
but generally speaking it may be said that only licensed drug-
gists and medical practitioners are permitted to import opium,
in quantities of which they may lawfully be in possession by
11
means of a special permit or licence. Exceptions are made in
the case of visitors of distinction from countries- outside India
and foreign horse-dealers, who are allowed to import small
quantities for the personal use of themselves and their attendants
or for their horses. In the Punjab licensed vendors are also
permitted to import on passes opium produced in the Simla Hill
States and the Hill States of Chamba, Mandi, Suket and Sirmur.
Similarly, in Ajmer-Merwara licensed wholesale and retail
vendors may import Malwa opium on pass. The further distri-
bution of opium thus obtained from Indian States is regulated
in exactly the same manner as the distribution of excise opium
described above. Imports by licensed druggists and supplies
obtained by them from licensed vendors can only be sold for
medicinal purposes, in quantities not in excess of the amount
which. the purchaser may legalty possess, and correct accounts
must be maintained showing the amount of opium in the
possession of the licensee from day to day.
The following statistics form a striking commentary on the
success of the Government's policy :
Excise Revenue (Licence
Consumption, Fees and Duty) converted
Excise Chests into sterling at Rs. 15
Year. of 123f Ibs. to the .
1911-12 8,334 1,010,133
1912-13 8,490 1,150,466
11)13-14 8,610 1,356,060
1914-15 8,311 1,372,666
1915-16 8,066 1.424,600
1916-17 8,099 1,373,066
1917-18 8,262 1,457,200
1918-19 7,893 1,587,733
1919-20 7,480 1,676,333
During the same period the issue price of excise opium
has been raised as shown below :
Issue Price Ks. per seer (2*2 Ibs.).
Province. 1911-12. 1921.
Madras - - 28 60
Bombay - 24 and 27 45
Bengal 29 to 35 50
Burma 35 to 72i 70 to 106 j
Bihar and Orissa - - . 17 to 35 55
United Provinces - 18 to 20 55
Punjab 13 to 37 50
North-West Frontier Pro-
vince 18 to 2fi 50
Delhi 13 to 37 50
Central Provinces - 23 1 45
Assam - 37 and" 40 50
Coorg 30 50
Baluchistan 16 35
is
and in nearly all provinces the amounts of raw opium which
may be in the possession of an individual at any one time have
been considerably reduced, as will be seen from the following
table :
Limit of private Possession of Raw Opium.
1911-12. 1920-21.
Tolas (180 grains). Tolas (180 grains).
Madras - - 6 (a) and 1 (b) 3 (a) and 1 (6)
Bombay - 10 (c) and 4 (d) 3 (c) and 1 (d)
Bengal - 5 3
Burma - 3 3
Bihar and Orissa 5 3
United Provinces 3 3
Punjab - 3 2
North- West Frontier
Province 3 2
Delhi -
Central Provinces 3 2
Assam - 53 and 2
Ajmer-Merwara 5 3
Coorg - 31
Baluchistan - 3 2
The population has risen from 244,267,542 in 1911 to
247,111,563 in 1921, yet it will be noticed that the total
consumption over a 10 years' period shows a slight decrease.
f In view of the fact that the price has been raised 50 per cent,
in the same period, the failure of consumption to decline
materially is proof that the Government have succeeded in
their policy of confining it to a practical minimum. It may be
remarked that the annual per capita consumption is at present
26 grains, slightly less than the figure arrived at by the Royal
Commission in 1893, and little more than half the per capita
[consumption of the United States of America, as estimated
by responsible American authority. Indian opium is not
exported to the United States. So far as other Eastern countries
are concerned, the comparison is more favourable still to India.
As regards many of the Far Eastern countries for which
statistical information exists, the Indian figure is only a third,
a tenth, a thirtieth or a fortieth part of the per capita consump-
tion in one of these countries. These ratios do not pretend to
be strictly accurate, but for purposes of comparison they may be
taken as approximately correct. It should also be noted that
they take into account only the amounts of opium imported
into such countries from India. Many of these countries also
obtain opium from Persia and Turkey, and if their imports
(rt) Ganjam, Vizagapatam, Grodavari.
(b) Rest of the Province.
(c) Portion of the Thar and Parkar District, east of the Eastern Kara Canal.
(d) Best of the Presidency.
from India were cut off, would have no difficulty in supplying
the deficiency from these sources. At the same time, as will be
explained in Chapter V., it is the policy of the Government of
India to regulate the quantities exported from India to these
countries according to the demands made by their Governments
for legitimate requirements.
In the face of comparison it is impossible to understand
why the finger of criticism should be pointed at opium con-
sumption in India. No estimate can be given as regards China.
That country has never ceased to produce opium, though the
Indian product was excluded from her shores on account of her
alleged determination entirely to extirpate native cultivation, arid
she has now returned to the position she occupied in the early
years of the present century, that of the greatest opium
producer and consumer in the world.
CHAPTER IV.
OPIUM SMOKING IN INDIA PROPER AND BURMA.
It has already been stated that opium smoking is not a
custom indigenous to India, It came to India as a foreign
habit, took the form of social indulgence among the lower and
dissipated classes, and has accordingly been the object of
severe repression.
There is no difficulty in prohibiting opium smoking in a
country where the consumption of opium in any form is
prohibited except for medical purposes, but the fact that opium-
eating is allowed in India rendered it very difficult to prohibit
the actual act of smoking, as any attempt to enforce such a
prohibition Avould obviously have involved domiciliary visits
and interference with the private lives of the people. Short of
this, however, the Government of India have done everything
possible to stamp out the practice, encircling it with restrictions
thatjall very little short of complete prohibition. By provincial
rules made under the Opium Act, the manufacture of smoking
preparations is forbidden, except by an individual for his own
use from opium lawfully in his possession, and the sale of
prepared opium is absolutely prohibited. In addition, limits
were prescribed for the private possession of preparations of
opium considerably less than those fixed in the case of raw
opium, and as smoking is extremely wasteful and consumes a
far greater quantity of the drug than eating, this made
excessive indulgence out of the question. Since 1912 the
issue price at which opium is sold to the consumer has been
raised to a considerable extent in every province in India, and
the maximum limit of private possession of both raw and prepared
opium has been reduced.
The extent to which the price of opium has been raised
and the limit of private possession of raw opium reduced was
shown in Chapter III. The following table shows the narrow
limits and the drastic reductions imposed in each province of
India in the case of prepared opium.
Province.
LIMIT OF PRIVATE POSSESSION OF OPIUM-
SMOKING ^REPARATIONS.
In the case of
individuals.
In the case of personsf
assembled for
purpose of smoking.
1911-12.
1920-21. 1911-12.
1920-21
Tolas (180 grains).
Madras
1
\
X
Bombay
1
i
4
i
2
Bengal
1
1
5
2
Burma
3
3
5
5
Bihar and Orissa
1
JL
2
5
2i
United Provinces
1
$
-:;:- "
Punjab
1
-:;:
1
North- West Frontier
1
i
::-
1
Province.
Delhi
1
i
tjl
1
Central Provinces
1
1
2"
$
1
Assam -
1
i
5
1
A j mer-Merwara
1
\
#
1
Coorg -
1
\
:\-
1
Baluchistan
1
1
*
1
* Not specially provided for.
f The 'figures in the 3rd and 4th columns represent the maximum amount of
opium for smoking allowed to an assembly of persons, howevei large. The total
of the individual allowances of the persons assembled is the governing maximum
until the figures shown in these columns are reached.
The Government of India have always before them the
ideal of unqualified and direct prohibition, and have carried
out a progressive campaign in this direction. As a result of
the recent change in the Government of India Act, the matter
has become one for the discretion of Provincial Governments in
the first instance, who are showing a keen interest in the question.
This has strengthened the hands of the Government of India, and
Provincial Governments, who already had before them a pro-
posal, cutting at the heart of what is essentially a social practice,
to declare illegal any assembly of three or more persons for the
purpose of smoking opium, even if that asse nbly consists of
members of the same family, have been asked to consider the
practicability o entirely prohibiting opium smoking. Replies
have already been received from two Governments, those of
Madras and the Punjab. The Government of Madras
15
decided against any measure of prohibition, stating that the
amount of local smoking is negligible, but the Government of
the Punjab state that they have under consideration legislation
to prohibit the practice of smoking in municipal and cantonment
areas.
This account of the regulations on the subject of opium
smoking in India needs to be qualified with reference to the
case of Burma, which has for many years presented a special
and difficult problem.
In Burma, as in China and the Malay Peninsula, opium is
more commonly smoked than eaten. Consumption is permitted
only to non-Bur mans, and to a limited number of Burmese
specially registered as opium consumers in Lower Burma. In
Upper Burma the sale to, or possession of, opium by Burmese,
except for medical purposes, was absolutely prohibited on the
annexation of the country in 1886.
It was accepted in 1893 that the consumption of opium
was harmful to people of the Burman race ; and in January
1894 the Government entered upon a campaign for the
progressive suppression of smoking in Lower Burma, which
can only be paralleled, and that on a far smaller scale,
by the achievement of the United States of America in the
Philippines. It was made penal for Burmans who had not
registered themselves as habitual consumers to possess or
consume opium, and the issue price of opium was placed
at a figure nearly double that fixed in any other province.
These restrictions, however, resulted in a large increase in
smuggling and illicit consumption in Burma, and it was
decided in 1900 to revise the arrangements. The steps taken
were (1) to increase the number of licensed opium shops in
Lower Burma ; (2) to grant licences for the sale of opium to
selected candidates instead of putting them up to auction ;
(3) to re-open temporarily the lists of registered Burraan
consumers for the addition of actual consumers who were over
25 years of age in 1893 ; (4) to organise further efforts against
opium smuggling through the agency of the preventive staff
and the police.
These measures were brought into effect in April 1902.
The result of their working was not found entirely satisfactory.
Under the 1894 arrangement 14,600 smokers were registered ;
to these 20,000 were now added. In the last year of the old
system 51.428 Ibs. of Government opium were consumed in
Lower Burma, and the opium receipts were about Rs. 20,00,000.
In 1904-05 the receipts were Rs. 46,00,000, and the con-
sumption 144,000 Ibs. The Government of Burma 'considered
that this merely indicated the supplanting of contraband opium
by Government opium, and that the total consumption had not
materially increased.
The rules were recast and ifjade more stringent in 1910,
while amendments of the law, made in the preceding year,
4933 li
16
gave increased powers in the matter of dealing with persons
suspected of unlawfully trafficking in opium anil as regards
arresting and searching for the drug. Finally, with effect
from the 1st April 1921, the Government of Burma have
prohibited the sale of prepared opium. By the end of 1911-12
the numbers of Burmans registered as smokers had fallen to
14,049, and is now 5,405. With the extinction of these there
will be absolute prohibition of opium to Burmans, except for
medical purposes, in the whole of Burma.
CHAPTER V.
THE EXPORT OF OPIUM FROM INDIA.
India now exports no opium to China, but the old trade
to China cannot be passed over in silence. Great interest
attaches to its origin and growth, to the agreement for the
progressive reduction of Indian exports side by side with the
suppression of cultivation in China, and to the dramatic-
stoppage of exports by the Government of India in 1913, an
action that involved Indian revenues in an annual loss of
4,000,OOOZ. sterling, and that has unfortunately entirely failed
to benefit China.
The first reference to the manufacture of opium in China
occurs in the 15th century, the knowledge of the drug having
no doubt been introduced to the Chinese, as to the Indians, by
the Arabs. When, at the beginning of the 16th century, the
Portuguese first entered the China Seas, they found opium an
important article of the trade carried on by Indian and Arab
merchants.
During the 17th century, Dutch, French, English and
Danish merchants purchased Bengal opium from the Mughal
Government for export, and when in the early part of the
18th century the Mughal monopoly fell into disuse, the
Europeans drew their supplies from the ring of native
merchants at Patna.
The establishment of a monopoly in Bengal opium by the
East India Company has already been referred to. In 1775 it
was decided that the monopoly should be a revenue measure
for the benefit of India, and that all opium delivered at
Calcutta, apart from a fixed number of chests disposed of to
the Dutch, French and Danish companies, should be sold at
auction for export only.
Import duties on opium are entered in the Chinese trade
books of the years 1589, 1615 and 1687, and in the Hoppo book of
1753. 1 According to the historical note compiled by Dr. Edkins,
of the Chinese Customs Service, in 1889, a Chinese author
1 A compilation 1 of tariffs, of which an interesting account is given by
Dr. Edkins in his Historical Note (see Bibliography).
17
writes that " In the Ming dynasty, 1360-1644, the pill called
" golden elixir came into use, and was found to be very
" deleterious if much was taken." But it was not until the
practice of smoking opium began to spread throughout China
that Indian opium began to be imported in large quantities.
Tobacco was imported into China from the Philippines in 1620,
and early in the 18th century the Chinese had progressed from
the Javan and Formosan habit of smoking opium impregnated
tobacco to smoking opium itself. The habit spread from
China to the Shan States of Burma, and cultivation in China
itself began to increase rapidly in the West.
In 1729 a severe Imperial edict was issued against opium
smoking, and from that time onwards raw opium from India
was often seized as contraband, though it was free to be
imported as foreign medicine. More usually it was passed by
the Canton mandarins on payment of a bribe, and as the same
procedure continued when the Emperor in 1796 began to
prohibit import, it is not surprising that the foreign merchants
failed to be impressed by the reforming intentions of the
Chinese Government, and indulged in smuggling on such a
scale as to precipitate the conflict that was bound to occur
sooner or later in view of the intense dislike of the Chinese for
foreigners.
By 1790 opium smoking had reached Peking, and the
demand had become so great that foreign merchants had hit on
the device of paying for their purchases in opium, a ready
substitute for coinage. As the demand went on increasing, the
balance of trade turned against China, and silver began to flow
out of the country. The Imperial Government viewed this
state of affairs with alarm, and an edict was issued in 1796
prohibiting the import of opium, and referring to the drain of
silver as the reason. The East India Company at once forbade
any opium to be carried on their ships, though they imposed
no conditions regarding the cargoes of private traders, to whom
they gave licences for the China trade.
The trade in opium continued to increase, and in 1816
the Select Committee of the East India Company stated " that
the officers of Government (the Chinese Government) are
:< never sincere in their declared intentions of suppressing illicit
il traffic, more particularly the trade in opium, as it is con-
" sidered one of the principal advantages of their situations.
While it remains notorious that the Imperial edicts for the
" prevention of this trade are annually issued by China with
one hand while large bribes are received by the other, it can
" never be imagined that any new regulations are framed with
" a view to the injury of such a trade, or that they for one
" moment consider the moral habits and welfare of the people."
The close of the East India Company's monopoly of the
China trade in 1834 gave a great impulse to the trade in opium
as well as in other goods. In the period 1830-35 the total
B 2
18
average combined exports of Bengal and Malwa opium (to China
and other countries) amounted to something between 20,000 and
25,000 chests a year, and the period 1835-36 to 1843-44 showed
an average annual export from India of about 34,000 chests. In
1847-48 the figure had risen to 46,000 chests, two-thirds of
which was Bengal, and for the three years 1852-55 the average
figure was 73,000 chests. After this date there was little
change for 38 years ; Chinese-produced opium having begun
to catch up with the demand and beginning to compete with
Malwa, though not with Government Bengal opium. From 1895
onwards China produced so much opium that the Indian export
figure fell steadily, until it reached the figure of 50,000 chests.
It is interesting to note that in 1830 and 1833 a Select
Committee of the House of Commons examined the subject of
the East India Company's China trade, affirming in J830 that
the prohibition edicts were disregarded by the Chinese people,
and in 1833 approving the Indian revenue' from the export of
opium.
In 1836 a memorial to the Emperor from the Vice President
of the Chinese Sacrificial Court begged that, the trade might be
legalised on a foundation of barter, as notwithstanding the fact
that opium smokers were liable to be punished with trans-
portation and death, the practice had spread through the whole
Empire, and the rise in the value of silver owing to its export
led to acute economic disorganisation. The memorial was
concurred in by other higher officials, who also suggested that
the foreign opium should be combated by relaxation of the
prohibition of cultivation in China. They were clearly more
concerned for silver than for morals. In fact, as Captain
Elliot (the British representative) pointed out, the Chinese were
far more anxious about the coast missions and the dissemination
of tracts than about opium as such.
A Chinese statesman had stated that Yunnan alone pro-
duced annually several thousand chests of opium, but that passed
unheeded. The silver crisis had become acute, and the Chinese
regarded the arrogance of the foreigners, now free traders, not
under the influence of the East India Company, as intolerable.
The strangers demanded diplomatic relations, contrary to " cus-
tom " ; they were outside the law, except as regards homicide ;
their missionaries claimed to protect converts, and were an
offence ; they brought foreign women to Canton, employed native
servants, and rode in sedan chairs. Conflict was inevitable, and
as opium formed three-fifths of the imports, it was bound to
occur over opium. A strong prohibition edict was issued in
1837, and in 1839 a strong Viceroy was sent to Canton. He
seized the British representative and the Canton merchants,
confiscated and burnt 20,283 chests of opium which Captain
Elliot had collected and surrendered in order to save the lives
of the Europeans, and in spite of Elliot's proposals for a
complete abandonment of the opium trade, let loose war junks
19
on British vessels. China had decided to teach the foreigner
his place. "Britain declared war in 1840.
The history given above should prove that the war was not
undertaken to force opium on China, and a few sentences from
Lord Palmeraton's instructions to the British representatives at
the peace negotiations of 1841 show that the result of the war
was not to compel China to take Indian opium : " .
You will state that the admission of opium into China as an
article of legal trade is not one of the demands which you
have been instructed to make . . . . It is evident that
no exertions of the Chinese authorities can put down the
trade .... It is equally clear that it is wholly out of
the power of the British Government to prevent opium from
being carried to China ; because even if none were grown in
any part of the British territories plenty of it would be
produced in other countries." It was, therefore, suggested
that the trade should be legalised. In fact, opium was not
mentioned in the Nankin Treaty, which closed the war, and
remained a prohibited and flourishing business.
The war of 1857 had no connection with opium, but when at
the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858 (finally ratified in 1860) a new
tariff was drawn up, the Chinese voluntarily legalised the trade by
entering opium in the tariff at an import duty of 30 taels per picul
or chest, double that on other articles, and subject to local transit
duty in addition. The following extracts make the responsi-
bility for the legalisation quits clear. Mr. Long, the Chinese
Secretary to Lord Elgin's Mission, wrote to the Times on the
22nd October 1880 : " When I came to opium, I enquired what
"course they proposed to take in respect to it. The answer
" was : ' We have resolved to put it into the tariff as foreign
" medicine.' I urged a moderate duty in view of the cost of
" collection, which was agreed to. This represents, with strict
" economy, the amount of 'extortion ' resorted to. The Chinese
" Government admitted opium as a legal article of import, not
' under constraint, but of their own free will deliberately.
Mr. Long's statement was confirmed by Mr. Laurence Oliphant,
Secretary to Elgin's Mission, in a letter to the Times on the
25th of the same month. The latter further stated : " When
we came to the article 'opium,' I informed the Commissioner
" that I had received instructions from Lord Elgin not to insist
" on the insertion of the drug in the tariff, should the Chinese
" Government wish to omit it."
In 1885 an additional Article to the Chefoo Convention
consolidated the import and transit duties into a lump sum of
100 taels per chest, payable before the opium went out of bond,
with the further stipulation that foreign opium should not be
subject to any taxation that was not levied on native opium.
In the negotiations preceding the Chefoo Convention, it
had become clear that the Chinese Government had ceased to
wish to prohibit import of opium, and had discovered the
20
possibilities of an opium revenue. They plainly said that
opium smoking could not now be eradicated, a statement fully
borne out by the observations of Vice-Consul Spence regarding
cultivation in South- West China in 1882. Spence considered
the arguments of the Anti-Opium Society regarding opium
cultivation in China, the attitude of the Imperial Government,
and the effect of opium smoking to be " absolutely untrue,"
and for the following reasons. The cultivation of poppy wn.s
carried on in nearly every district of Szechuan. In country
hamlets almost every second house was an opium shop, and in
the whole region Indian opium was unknown. In face of this,
the people were healthy, well housed, well fed, and well clad,
though probably six-tenths of the adult male population were
opium smokers. The production of Szechuan, Yunnan,
Kueichow and South-West Hupei, Ichang Fu, and Sliih Nan Fu
came to 224,000 piculs, or 29,866,666 Ibs., from 850,000 acres.
This was 2 times the whole Indian import into China.
Here it may be noted that in view of the present conditions
in China, and the recent recorded prices of the native drug,
it looks as if, by depriving China of Bengal opium, we have
prohibited champagne, but not affected gin. By 1905 one
Chinese province showed a production two or three limes the
total Indian imports, and for many years before the stoppage
of export in 1914 Malwa opium was suffering heavily from the
competition of the China crop.
Spence added that Shensi was producing top grade opium
in the very year that the Governor -was reporting that he had
uprooted the poppy everywhere in his jurisdiction. He
concluded his report with the following prophetic remarks :
" The right of the people to grow and smoke opium has
been for years unquestioned by their officials : to compel them to
surrender the right now, would be to provoke a rebellion. Even
if the Government were willing to incur this risk, and determined
coute que coute to be rid of opium, which it would be at present
nonsensical to affirm, success would require a vigorous executive,
free from venality and opium smoking, having under its orders
armies of constables equally free from these faults. But China
has no such executive and no such armies. Of the local official
class, their attendants, hangers-on and constables, it may truly
be said that if there is one quality more conspicuous than their
venality, it is their love of opium smoking. Even were the
prospect of a bona fide effort not a chimera its success would be
impossible.
" What, under the circumstances, would be the practical
effect of the rigorous prohibition of opium cultivation in India,
and the attempted exclusion by China of foreign opium, it is
easy to see. Its effect on opium smoking in Yunnan, Kueichow,
Szechuan, Kansuh, Shenshi and Western Hupei, where Indian
and foreign opium are all but unknown, would be nil.
Amongst the poor smokers in the East, who now use the
21
native drug, its effect would be equally nil. Many who now use
Indian opium would take to native, and one effect would be to
give a great stimulus to production in tlie West. But well-
to-do smokers in the East and seaboard provinces, amongst
whom I include all who at present spend 1 Od. a day on Indian
opium, would everywhere seek for a high-class smuggled
opium. Smuggling would be organised all along the coast,
Chinese desperadoes would find willing associates in running
foreign opium into the country in European and American
adventurers, the Maritime Customs service would have to
become an armed force, quiet seaports would be turned into
hells of disorder, and international relations between China and
foreign Powers would be embittered to an intolerable degree.
The opium which could not be grown in India would come in
part from Turkey and Persia ; new fields for its growth would
be opened in Mozambique and similar latitudes in Africa ; and
, the profits of the trade, instead of passing, as they do now, to
the support of our beneficent rule and civilisation in India,
would become the incentive to, and the reward of, lawlessness,
disorder and crime."
The attitude of the British Government towards China
during these years was well expressed in the declaration in
Parliament of Sir J. Fergusson on 10th April 1891, that, " if the
" Chinese Government thought proper to raise the duty on
" opium to a prohibitive extent, or to shut out the article
" altogether, this country would not expend II. on powder and
" shot, or lose the life of a soldier in an attempt to force the
u opium trade on the Chinese," and in Mr. Gladstone's state-
ment of the 30th June 189,3, that " we have left that matter to
" China herself. . . . The opium which we allow to be
u exported ... is sent to that country to be received by
" China if she chooses to receive it."
In section I. (c) of their findings, the Royal Commission of
1893-95 stated that, in their opinion, it was not found that
satisfactory reasons existed for unsolicited action by the British
Government for the destruction of the trade in Indian opium
with China, and they agreed in not recommending any action
that would have Vhat effect. If at any future time the Chinese
Government declared a wish to prohibit import, however, they
thought that the question would be changed and should be
reconsidered.
The question changed in 1906, when, for the first time
since 1858, the Government of China decided to prohibit the
cultivation and consumption of opium.
Whatever the real causes of the anti-opium movement
in China, and however badly that movement has failed, it
seems true that both the Imperial Government in 1906
and the young China party in the best days of the Republic
were earnest in thejr desire to suppress the importation,
cultivation and use of opium ; and when the British Government
22
were approached by China with a view to the reduction and
ultimate extinction of the Indian import, there were no two
courses open.
The result was the conclusion of an agreement at the
I beginning of 1JJQS, by which, with effect from the 1st January
1908, the Government of India undertook to diminish progres-
sively the total amount of opium sold at Calcutta by 5,100 chests
a year for a period of three years, which it was expected would
indirectly diminish the amount imported into China ; and if
the Chinese fulfilled their share of the agreement to reduce
^ cultivation in China to a similar extent, they further agreed to
continue annual reductions of 5,100 chests until the total export
reached the figure of 16,000 chests. Over the five year period
1901-05 the average annual export to all countries was 67,000
chests, of which China took 51,000, so that progressive annual
reductions of 5,100 chests would have brought export to
China to an end in 1917, the limitation having begun in 1908,
when the total export to all countries was 61,900 chests. The
difficulty presented by the Malwa trade was overcome by a
decision to throw the greater part of the burden of reduction
upon the Bengal monopoly, and the situation was further eased
by the fact that owing to bad seasons and the competition
of the native Chinese drug cultivation had for a long time
been declining in the Indian States. The net result was a
very great diminution in Indian cultivation.
Mr. Leach, Councillor to the Peking Legation, reporting to
Sir J. Jordan in November 1907, stated that the appreciable
amount of success obtained up to that date by the Chinese
Government in their " stupendous task of attempting by
" legislation to eradicate a national and popular vice in
" a country whose population is generally estimated at
" 400,000,000," showed that the task could be fulfilled, and
that the Chinese people in general considered opium smoking
a vice. In a further report, transmitted to London by
Sir J. Jordan in June 1908, Mr. Leach remarked that since
his previous report the chief feature of the situation had been
the continued energy of the Central Government and the
growing apathy of provincial officials, but he produced
gratifying evidence of a reduction in cultivation from many
provinces. In November 1908 Sir Alexander Hosie reported
that there was no question as to the continued sincerity and
zeal of the Central Government, which was backed by public
opinion and a young but growing patriotism, and Sir J. Jordan
agreed that, " considering the magnitude of the task, the success
" which has so far attended the movement is as great as could
" reasonably be expected." In October 1909 Mr. Max Muller,
Councillor to the Peking Legation, reported that distinct
progress had been made, especially in Sharisi and Yunnan, arid
considered that the great test would arise in the case of
Szechuan, the chief opium province, where sowing in the
23
autumn of 1909 had been prohibited. In April 1910 it was
reported that cultivation in Szechuan had been greatly checked,
and it was then arranged for Sir Alexander Hosie to make an
extensive tour of inspection during the 1910 season. In March
1911 Sir A. Hosie reported that cultivation has been suppressed
in Szechuan " for the present " ; that there had been a
reduction of 75 per cent, in the prod-action of Yunnan % where
raw opium had risen to six times its value in 1907 ; that in
Kansu production had increased in some districts and had been
energetically diminished in others; that very little decrease
had been effected in Shensi, but that cultivation had been
entirely suppressed in Shan si.
Negotiations were begun at Peking in the latter half of
1910 for a continuance of the 1908 arrangement, the Govern-
ment of India agreeing that there was sufficient general
evidence that cultivation had been substantially reduced in
China to warrant their waiving statistical proof, and a new
agreement was drawn up and signed on the 8th May 1911.
ruder the terms of this agreement the Government of India
agreed (.1) to the payment of an import duty three times the
existing amount in return for the promised abolition of pro-
vincial taxes ; (2 s ) to the partial closure of China to Indian opium
by provinces, including not only stoppage of transit passes, but
also treaty port closure, Shanghai and Canton excepted ; (3) to
the total extinction of trade before 1917 on proof of total
cessation of opium production in China ; and (4) to revision
of the agreement on due notice by either party. On her side
China agreed, amongst other things, to reduce production in
China pari passu with the reduction of exports from India.
In addition to the limit to the China trade imposed by the
agreement, the Government of India agreed, in order to lessen
the danger of smuggling into China, and as an earnest of their
desire to assist that country, strictly to confine the remainder
of the Indian exports to the legitimate demands of the non-
China markets. The figure arrived at for these markets, the
result of elaborate calculations based on Board of Trade
statistics and the average exports for the period 1905-09, when
no inducement for smuggling to China had existed, was 14,000
chests ; the Government of India cut down their non-China
exports to this figure in 1911, and in order to make assurance
doubly sure, spontaneously reduced this to 13,200 chests in
1912. The whole of the very large revenue from the China
trade was now lost to India, as well as the revenue from that
part of the exports to non-China markets which was sacrificed
as an unsolicited and indirect contribution to China's success.
Then followed the revolution in China, Szechuan being
among the first provinces to revolt. Poppy began to be grown
again everywhere. Cultivation in Yunnan was reported to be
continuing as early as November 1911, and in the Cheng Tu
24
district of Szeclman in January 1912. In May and August
1912 the matter was the subject of questions in the House CH
Commons, but the Government declared its determination to
carry out the British side of the 1911 agreement irrespective
of events in China, in the hope that when a settled Government
emerged in China it would take up the work of suppression
where it had been left by the Manchus.
The hoped for change came towards the end of 1912, when
the Republican Government was at last firmly in the saddle,
and began to surpass the rigours of the Manchu rulers in the
suppression of the opium habit. The movement had, as might
have been foreseen, become indiscriminate, a hatred of native
opium being accompanied by a hatred of imported, and the
conditions of the 1911 agreement were lost sight of in the
fervour of the moment.
This movement, holding up the stocks at Shanghai, led to
an accumulation of 30,000 chests at that port. The situation
became serious, and in April 1913 the Government of India
stopped export to China. On the 7th May 1913, Mr. Montagu,
at that time Under Secretary for India, stated that " we are
" prepared not to send any more opium to China not only this
" year, not only while the stocks are being absorbed, but never
" again, with the single exception that we desire to be satisfied
"that China .... is steadfast in the pursuit of her
" present policy and determined to get rid of her indigenous
' poppy."
The closure of provinces now, of course, only affected the
disposal of stocks at Shanghai and the general situation as far
as it was affected by the stocks question, and the remainder of
the history of the poppy in China is of academic interest only,
so far as the 1911 Agreement is concerned. Throughout 1913
the suppression of cultivation went on, marked by violent
methods of intimidation and repression, which were directed as
much against the purchases of Indian opium as against the
native cultivators and dealers, and by this time probably nobody
except the Anti-Opium Society believed that poppy cultivation
could be permanently suppressed in China. In 1917 the
Chinese Government closed the whole of China to Indian
opium, holding that the 1911 Agreement had automatically
expired.
On the 17th October 1918 it was stated in the House of
Commons that no official information had been received of any
increase in the production of opium in China since 1917, but
civil war and the breakdown of the machinery of central
control were soon to lead to a change, in which native opium
came to be regarded as the chief means of raising money for
troops.
In 1918 considerable recrudescence of growing took place
in five provinces, and in Kansu the price of opium had fallen
50 per cent. Large quantities of the drug were also produced
25
in Russian territory and imported into China, thousands of
Chinese themselves crossing the border to grow the crop.
Further reports of planting and harvesting were received
in April 191.9, together with confirmation of the fact that
cultivation in Fukien was connived at by the local officials.
Fukien, hoAvever, being in the hands of the Southern Govern-
ment, Sir J. Jordan considered it useless to protest to the
Chinese Foreign Office at Peking. In May information was
received of extensive growing, with official support, in Szechuan
and Shensi, cultivation being permitted on payment of a tax,
and Sir J. Jordan admitted that his representations would be
likely to have little effect. It is worth noting that the Chinese
armies were credited with reintroducing the opium smoking
habit in all districts they occupied, and that the military
governors and commanders were saddled with the responsibility
of fostering the cultivation and consumption of the drug.
In June 1919 a remarkable letter was received from Sir J.
Jordan, in which he said that Mr. Easte, travelling to take up
his duties at Chengtu, reported that 30 to 50 per cent, of the
fields in his line of march through Szechuan were full of poppy,
and added that there appeared never to .have been any real
effort at eradication.
In spite of a formal protest to the Chinese Foreign Office,
warning them that the continued and growing cultivation
constituted a -"grave infringement of the solemn pledge
" entered into by the Chinese Government by the 1911
" Agreement," reports received in July 1919 more than con-
firmed all that had gone before, and it was estimated that in
1918 the acreage under poppy in Kirin Province (North
Manchuria) alone was 40,500. Affairs were rapidly returning
to the position of affairs at the time when Vice-Consul Spence
wrote his report in 1882.
The year 1920 continued the tale of flourishing cultivation,
on the profits and extortions from which most of the armies in
China appeared to be subsisting, while in spite of heavy
taxation the price of opium remained generally only half the
rates that had obtained in 1918. In Chinese Turkestan it had
fallen from 45 taels 1to 15 taels per lb., and in Yunnan it was
stated to be selling at 30 cents an ounce, less than the cost of
production in India.
The reports of His Majesty's Consular officers, corroborated
and strengthened by missionaries, private firms of standing,
shipping companies, and the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce,
point conclusively to the fact that China is now much the greatest
opium-producing country of the world.
The end of the China trade reduced the Indian export
trade to extremely small proportions. Smuggling to China
was guarded against by the imposition of a voluntary limit on
exports, as has been stated above. It was decided in 1911,
after a systematic examination of all. the available data, to
26
accept the lowest estimate of the legitimate requirements of the
non-China markets, namely, , 11,000 chests annually, although
evidence was produced to the effect that 16,000 chssts would
not be too high a figure, and to refuse to permit exports in
excess of that amount. In 101.2 the number of chests was cut
down to ] 3,200.
In 1915 the Government of India embarked upon a policy
of entering into agreements with the Governments of importing
countries for the direct supply of the bulk of the opium
requirements of those countries. These Governments are thus
made publicly responsible for limiting their imports to the
legitimate requirements of the territories under their control,
and for the prevention of re-export. The system has the further
advantage of eliminating the possibility of smuggling in respect
of the greater part of Indian exports. Agreements of this kind
are now in force with Hong Kong, the Straits Settlements
(whose requirements include the Federated Malay States),
British North Borneo, Ceylon, the Dutch East Indies and Siam.
Efforts are at present being made to extend the system to the
remaining importers of Indian opium, Japan, French Lndo-
China and Portugal (for Macao), and, if these al tempts are
! successful, the disposal of opium by public auction at Calcutta
will in all probability cease. The agreements contain a clause
that the importing Government is not bound to take a minimum
quantity of opium. Exports to the Portuguese Colony of
Macao are at present regulated by a Treaty of 1913 with
Portugal, prescribing maximum limits for the amount of
Indian opium which may be imported by the opium farmer
at Macao, but this Treaty was denounced on behalf of His
Majesty's Government by the British Minister at Lisbon on the
4th February 1922. The denunciation takes effect one year
from that date, when the amount of Indian opium which may
be annually exported to Macao will be subjected to a lower
limit than the present one of 500 chests.
More than three-quarters of the total exports are now sent
I direct to responsible Governments, and the amount of opium
sold by auction at Calcutta, which was 48, 000 chests in 1901. fell
1 to 19,840 in 1912, and in 1921 amounted to 705 chests only.
Even in respect of this small quantity importing Governments
have full power of control, and the Government of India would
willingly co-operate in any measures suggested by those
Governments in order to make that control more effective.
The table on page 27 gives details of exports to a number of
countries since the year 1870, and shows both the enormous
diminution of the trade and its present exiguous proportions.
The column for China includes also Hong Kong and Macao, and
the figures for the years 1914-20 represent exports to those
Colonies. As stated above, no Indian opium has been exported
to China proper since 1913. The increasing figures for the
United Kingdom from 1913 onwards represent medicinal needs
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28
caused by the war. At a later stage, in response to urgent
appeals, the Government of India sent large quantities of
medical opium direct to the Home Government. These are not
recorded in the table, but amounted to 10,476 chests in all.
No Indian opium has been exported to Great Britain by private
merchants since 1.916.
The principal importers recorded under the head " Other
Countries" in the table are Japan, Siam and British- North
Borneo. No opium is exported from India to the United States
of America or to Great Britain The Governments of British
North Borneo and Siam both entered into agreements for the
direct supply of opium in 1918. During the three calendar
years 1918-20 the former has taken 120, 120 and 192 chests,
while Siam has imported 1,700 chests annually. Japan, who
has not }^et entered into an agreement with the Government of
India, and therefore purchases at the Calcutta auctions, began
to import opium from India in 1911, and has taken the following
quantities since that time :
Year. No. of Chests. Year. Xo. of Chests.
1911-12 - - 425 1916-17 - 963
1912-13 - 950 L917-18 - - 971
1913-14 - - 799 1918-19 - - 1,936
1914-15 - 900 1919-20 - 980
1915-16 - - 1,080
As it has been asserted that India is administered on the
proceeds of opium, and that the policy of the Government of
India is biassed by consideration for the opium revenues, a table
is appended which shows the gross revenue derived from sales
of opium for export during the period 1910-21 :
Year. Year. <
1010-11 - 7,240,407 1916-17 - 2,455,442
1911-12 - 4,898,151 1917-18 - 2,135,810
1912-13 - 3,320,349 1918-19 - 2,454,321
1913-14 - 1,279,478 1919-20 - 2,386,305
1914-15 - 1,230,486 1920-21 1,953,167
1915-16 - 1,500,215 ^
The effect of the cessation of the China trade in 1913 is
strikingly shown by these figures, which effectively prove that
the policy of the Government of India in opium matters is not
swayed by considerations of revenue. The increase in revenue
since 1915-16 is clue to the rise in the price of opium.
The revenue obtained from licence fees and the excise
duty on opium is under the control of Provincial Governments,
but for purposes of comparison the excise revenue figures,
which were given in Chapter III., may be added to those given
above, and the total may be compared with the gross
29
revenue of British India. In every case rupees are converted
into sterling at the rate of 15 to the pound.
Excise Revenue
plus Sales Gross Revenue of
Vear. for Export. British India.
1910-11
1911-12
1912-13
1913-14
1914-15
1915-16
1916-17
1917-18
1918-19
8,216,540
5,908,284
4,470,815
2,635,444
2,603,152
2,924,815
3,828,508
3,593,010
4,042,054
.
80,682,473
82,835,750
86,862.598
85,207,175
81,157,666
84,413,537
98,050,430
1 12,662,347
123,257,744
CHAPTER VI.
THE HAGUE CONVENTION.
While the Indian trade in opium to China was being
terminated, and China herself was in the throes of temporary
suppression of cultivation, the opium question began to assume
a more widely international aspect. In 1909, on the initiative
of the United States of America, an International Opium
Commission met at Shanghai and formulated a series of
recommendations for the suppression of opium smoking and
regulaticn of the use of opium and morphia. The United
States then advanced a further proposal for an International
Conference at the Hague, which met on the 1st December 1911.
It cannot be too emphatically stated that the terms' of the
Convention finally drawn up presented no new ideas to the
Government of India. That Government had for long regulated
the consumption of opium in its territories in the most complete
manner, and had already agreed to export no opium to countries
which prohibited its import, and to control export to countries
desiring to restrict import. They had already expanded their
measures for the suppression of opium smoking to embrace the
recommendations of the Shanghai Commission, and they had
given the world a signal instance of disinterested self-sacrifice in
I lie matter of discontinuing the China trade. Independently of the
China agreement, they had voluntarily cut down the amount of
opium allowed to be imported to non-China markets from the
average figure of 16,000 chests to 14,000 chests in 1911 and
13,200 chests in 1912, as it was not clear how much non-China
opium was being directed to that country owing to the high
prices prevailing there. As regards morphia and cocaine, the
use of these drugs in India was subject to exceedingly strict
regulations long before 1912.
30
Bearing in mind the fact that, as the Royal Commission
of 1893 had pointed out, any attempt to confine the use
of opium in India to strictly medical needs vouched for
by medical practitioners would be not only inhuman, but
absurd, the regulations of the Government of India effected
more than was likely to be required of them. Cocaine and
morphia, on the other hand, the use of which for other than
medical purposes invariably takes the form of dangerous vice,
were becoming a menace to the entire world, but were not
included within the scope of the proposals submitted by the
United States of America for the consideration of the Conference.
It was mainly owing to the pressure exerted by the Government
of India that these drugs were included within the terms of the
Convention finally concluded, and a rigid and universal
application of the articles which apply to them would rid the
world of the drug evil.
In view of the amount of misapprehension that continues
to accumulate round the provisions of the Hague Convention, it
is necessary to lay stress on its actual meaning. As regards
raw opium, the contracting Powers undertook to control its
production and distribution ; to limit the number of ports from
which it might be imported or exported ; to prevent its export
to countries which prohibit import, and to control export to
countries which restrict import ; to mark opium consignments
as such ; and to confine its import and export to authorised
persons. As regards prepared opium, that is to say, smoking
opium, which India does not, and never has, exported, and the
sale of which in India is prohibited, the Powers agreed to aim
at the gradual suppression of manufacture, internal trade, and
use, with due regard to the varying circumstances of each
country concerned, unless regulations on the subject are already
in existence ; and to prohibit import and export immediately,
or as soon as possible. As regards medicinal opium, morphine,
cocaine, and allied drugs, it was agreed to enact regulations
confining manufacture, sale and use to medical and legitimate
purposes, and to pass measures for controlling manufacturers,
traders and exporters.
This summary contains the chief provisions of the Con-
vention, which was no less than a complete vindication of
Indian policy. The anti-opium party in Great Britain and in
the United States of America has, however, completely failed to
understand its purport, and has continually attacked the
Government of India for not carrying out its provisions.
A second Opium Conference met. in 1913 and decided tha<,
although certain Powers who had been invited to sign the
Convention had not then done so, the deposit of ratifications
might, nevertheless, take place. A third met in 1914, and
recommended early ratification by all the Powers who had not
yet ratified, in order that the Convention should come into
force as soon as possible. Progress was then suspended by the
31
outbreak of war, but finally, under Article 295 of the Treaty of
Peace with Germany, it was provided that ratification of that
treaty should imply ratification of the Hague Convention and
a promise to enact the necessary legislation within a period of
12 months. Similar provisions were included in the treaty
with Austria (Article 247). Hungary (Article 230), Bulgaria
(Article 174), and in the unratified Treaty of Sevres with
Turkey (Article 280). It is important to note that Turkey, the
chief Middle Eastern source of opium, the fountain from which
American supplies are drawn, refused to sign the Convention.
Persia was among the signatories, but with a reservation of a
number of articles, among these Article 3 (a), which requires
the contracting parties '' to prevent the export of raw opium
to countries which should have prohibited its entry."
The preceding chapters have shown how rigidly the
Government of India's practice conforms to, and in many
respects goes beyond, the requirements of the Hague Convention,
a summary of which was given above, but it may be as well to
set out these requirements in detail, and to show categorically
how they are satisfied by the law or regulations in force in
India.
The principal articles of the Convention are as follows :
CHAPTER I. RAW OPIUM.
Definition. By "raw opium" is understood
The spontaneously coagulated juice obtained from the
capsules of the pa paver somniferurn, which has only been
submitted to the necessary manipulations for packing and
transport.
Article 1.
The contracting Powers shall enact effective laws or
regulations for the control of the production and distribution
of raw opium, unless laws or regulations on the subject are
already in existence.
The laws and regulations in force in India have been
described in Chapters II. and III.
Article 2.
Due regard being liad to the differences in their commercial
conditions, the contracting Powers shall limit the number of
towns, ports, or other localties through ichich the export or
import of raw opium shall be permitted.
Opium is only allowed to be exported from British India
through the ports of Calcutta and Bombay.
Article 3.
The contracting Powers shall take measures-^-
(a) To prevent the export of raw opium to countries ichich
shall have prohibited its entry, and
4983 C
32
(b) To control the export of raw opium to countries which
restrict its import, unless regulations on the subject are already
in existence.
The export of opium from India has been dealt with in
Chapter V. Opium is not allowed to be exported to countries
which have prohibited its import, and the Government of
India would co-operate with any Government that desired to
restrict its imports of Indian opium. To prevent the abuse of
Indian opium, the Government of India have, in this respect,
gone further than the terms of the Convention demand, by
arbitrarily limiting the amount of their opium exports to a
figure below the ascertained normal demands of countries
which permit its import.
Article 4.
The contracting Powers shall make regulations requiring
that every package containing raw opium intended -for export
shall be marked in such a way as to indicate its contents,
provided that the consignment exceeds 5 kilog.
All chests of opium for export are packed in gunny and
marked with a number, a red stripe and the words " Benares
Opium."
Article 5.
The contracting Powers shall not allow the import and
export of raw opium except bg duly authorised persons.
Seventy-seven per cent, of the exports are sent by the
Government of India direct to Governments of importing
countries. Compliance with this Article in respect of exports
by private merchants is secured by notifications issued under
the Opium Act of 1878.
The import of opium by post is absolutely prohibited, and
import by other means is only allowed to persons properly
authorised by Local Governments.
CHAPTER II. PREPARED OPIUM.
Definition. By "prepared opium" is understood
The product of raw opium, obtained by a series of special
operations, especially by dissolving, boiling, roasting and
fermentation designed to transform it into an extract suitable
for consumption.
Prepared opium includes dross and all other residues
remaining ivlien opium has been smoked.
Article 6.
The contracting Powers shall take measures for the gradual
and effective suppression of the manufacture of, internal trade
in, and use of pr^ared^opium, loith due regard to the varying
circumstances of each country concerned, unless regulations on
the subject are already in existence.
33
The measures taken by the Government of India for the
gradual and effective suppression of the use of prepared opium
are explained in Chapter IV. Except in Burma, manufacture
is onJy permitted to private individuals from raw opium lawfully
in their possession, and an individual may not manufacture for
liis own use more than eleven-fiftieths of an ounce at any one time.
Burma is the only part of India where opium is habitually
smoked, and there the Government of India have waged a long
campaign for its suppression. Within a short period of time
there will be complete prohibition of the use of opium by
Burmans for other than medicinal purposes. The sale of
prepared opium is prohibited throughout India.
Article 7.
The contracting Powers shall prohibit the import and export
of prepared opium ; those Powers, hoioever, which are not yet
ready to prohibit immediately the export of prepared opium
shall prohibit it as soon as possible.
Article 8.
The contracting Powers which are not yet ready to prohibit
immediately the export of prepared opium
(a) shall restrict the number of towns, ports, or other
localities through which prepared opium may be exported ;
(b) shall prohibit the export of prepared opium to countries
u'hich now forbid, or which may hereafter forbid, the
import thereof ;
(c) shall, in the meanwhile, prohibit the consignment of
prepared opium to a country which desires to restrict its
entry unless the exporter complies with the regulations
of the importing country ;
(d) shall take measures to ensure that every package
exported, containing prepared opium, bears a special
mark indicating the nature of its contents ;
(e) shall not permit the export of prepared opium except
by special authorised persons.
Both import and export of prepared opium are forbidden
under section 4 of the Opium Act of 1878. At no time in her
history has prepared opium been exported from India.
CHAPTER III. MEDICINAL OPIUM, MORPHINE, COCAINE, &c.
Definitions. By " medicinal opium " is understood
Raw opium which has been heated to 60 centrigade and
contains not less than 10 per cent, of morphine, ichether or not
it be powdered or granulated, or mixed icith indifferent
materials.
84
By "morphine'" is understood
The principal alkaloid of opium, having the chemical
formula Ciy Hi9 NOs.
By " cocaine " is understood
The principal alkaloid of the leaves of erythroxylon coca,
having the formula Ci7 Il2i N04.
By " heroin " is understood
Diacetyl-morphine, having the formula C2i H23 NOs.
Article 9.
The contracting Powers shall enact pharmacy laws or
regulations to confine to medical and legitimate purposes the
manufacture, sale, and use of morphine, cocaine, and their
respective salts unless laws or regulations on the subject are
already in existence. They shall co-operate with one another to
prevent the use of these drugs for any other purpose.
Under the rules in force in India, licensed dealers or
chemists may manufacture and sell morphia drugs and cocaine,
and may sell to other chemical dealers, or chemists, or to
approved medical, veterinary and dental practitioners. In fact,
however, no morphia is manufactured in India except at the
Government factory at Ghazipur. The chemist can only sell
on the prescription of an approved practitioner, and the latter
may only possess morphia drugs for use in his practice. The
ordinary individual may only possess morphia drugs and
cocaine as issued to him on medical prescription. The Govern-
ment of India, who were largely responsible for the inclusion
of these drugs within the terms of the Convention, are prepared
to co-operate to the fullest possible extent with other Govern-
ments to prevent their use for other than medical purposes.
Article 10.
The contracting Powers shall use their best endeavours to
control, or to cause to be controlled, all persons manufacturing,
importing, selling, distributing, and exporting morphine, cocaine,
and their respective salts, as well as the buildings in which these
persons carry on such industry or trade.
With this object, the contracting Parties shall use their
best endeavours to adopt, or cause to be adopted, the following
measures, uuless regulations on the subject are already in
existence :
(a) to confine the manufacture of morphine, cocaine, and
their respective salts to those establishments and premises
alone ichich have been licensed for the purpose, or to
obtain information respecting the establishments and
pi*emises in which these drugs are manufactured and to
keep a register of them ;
35
(b) to require that all persons engaged in the manufacture,
import, sale, distribution, or export of morphine, cocaine,
and their respective salts shall be furnished with a licence
or permit to engage in these operations, or shall mahe to
the competent authorities an official declaration that they
are so engaged. ;
(c) to require that such persons shall enter in their books
the quantities manufactured, imports, sales, and all other
distribution, and exports of morphine, cocaine, and their
respective salts. This ride shall not necessarily apply
to medical prescriptions and to sales by duly authorised
chemists.
These requirements are all fulfilled b} 7 the rules in force in
India, with the following exceptions. As manufacture of
morphia drugs is only carried on at the Government factory,
the form of licence granted to dealers and chemists contains no
reference to the premises where manufacture may be carried on.
The Government of India therefore suggested to Local Govern-
ments early in 1921 that this omission should be remedied.
The same position exists in respect of cocaine, but as no cocaine
whatever is manufactured in India, it has not been thought
necessary up to the present to make any amendments.
Article 11.
The contracting Powers shall take measures to prohibit, as
regards tlieir iniernal trade, the delivery of morphine, cocaine,
and their respective salts to any unauthorised persons, unless
regulations on the subject are already in existence.
Article 12.
Due regard being had to the difference in their conditions,
the contracting Powers shall use their best endeavours to restrict
to authorised persons the import of morphine, cocaine, and their
respective salts.
The import by post of alkaloids of opium and cocaine is
absolutely prohibited, and these drugs may not circulate through
the post within India. Morphine drugs can only be imported
by persons licensed to possess such drugs, and cocaine only
under the authorisation of a special permit. The imports of
cocaine for the year 1919-20 amounted to 172 ounces, to supply
the needs of 318,000,000 people.
Article 13.
The contracting Powers shall use their best endeavours to
adopt, or cause to be adopted, measures to ensure that morphine,
cocaine, and their respective salts shall not be exported from
then' countries, possessions, colonies and leased territories to the
countries, possessions, colonies and leased territories of the other
36
contracting Powers, except token consigned to persons furnished
with the licences or permits provided for by Ihc laws or
regulations of the importing country.
With this object each Government may communicate from
time to time to the Governments of the exporting countries lists
of the persons to whom licences or permits for the, import of
morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts have been granted.
The fulfilment of this Article requires the co-operation of
importing countries, and the Government of India have
expressed their readiness to prohibit the export of morphine
and cocaine unless the consignment to be exported is covered
by an import certificate granted by the Government of the
importing country, to the effect that the drug is required solely
for medicinal or scientific purposes. In fact, no cocaine has ever
been exported from India, and morphia has only been exported
in small quantities in the form of by-products obtained from
waste materials at the Government factory.
Article 14.
The contracting Powers shall apply the laws and, regulations
respecting the manufacture, import, sale, or export of morphine,
cocaine, and their respective salts
(a) to medicinal opium ;
(b) to all preparations (medicinal and non-medicinal,
including the so-called anti-opium remedies) containing
more than 0'2 per cent, of morphine, or more than
' 1 per cent, of cocaine ;
(c) to heroin, its salts and preparations containing more
than ' 1 per cent, af heroin ;
(d; to all new derivatives of morphine, of cocaine, or of
their respective salts, and to every other alkaloid of
opium, which may be shown by scientific research,
generally recognised, to be liable to similar abuse and
productive of like ill-effects.
Medicinal opium in the past was subject to the same
regulations as raw opium, but on the coming into force of the
Convention the Government of India drew the attention of
Local Governments to the question of amending the definition
of morphine drugs contained in their. rules so as to include
medicinal opium. In fact, medicinal opium is not manu-
factured in India. Similarly, steps were taken at the same
time to examine the lists of preparations excluded from the
operation of the rules on the ground of the negligible amounts
of morphine or cocaine entering into their composition, in
order to comply strictly with the requirements of this article.
Heroin is subject to the rules applicable to morphine drugs.
Articles 15 to 19 of the Convention are concerned with
China and the Treaty Powers, and relate principally to
smuggling into and out of China, and to the leased territories.
3f
Article 20 suggests that the contracting powers should examine
the possibility of making it a penal offence to be in illegal
possession of any of the substances dealt with by the Con-
vention, and Article 21 provides that they shall communicate
to one another, through the Netherlands Government lior
which the Secretariat of the League of Nations has now been
generally substituted by arrangement) texts of their laws and
regulations and statistical information concerning trade. Both
these Articles have been complied with by the Government of
India. The remaining Articles relate to details of signature
and ratification.
It will be observed that a thorough and honest application
of the Articles of this Convention would fully secure the
objects which the Convention was designed to attain. As
regards the morphia and cocaine habits, a far greater danger
than opium smoking has ever been, Chapter III., if rigidly
interpreted by all the contracting Powers, provides a complete
remedy. India cannot be held responsible for the failure of other
Powers to control the traffic in their own territories, and the
suggestion that the export of opium from India is the fountain of
evil that drowns all attempts to eliminate these pernicious habits
is merely a confession that some of the contracting Powers are
not fulfilling their obligations. It cannot be denied that India has
completely carried out her part of the bargain. Her production
of opium is small compared with that of China, and she is
only one of several exporters of raw opium. The bulk of her
exports go direct to responsible Governments, who are in a
position to gauge the requirements of their countries and to
prevent re-exports, and the remainder goes to countries whose
Governments are all signatories of the Convention. She is
prepared to co-operate to the fullest possible extent in assisting
those Governments to enforce any restrictions they may
desire. If they desire to prohibit the import of opium no
opium will be sent. If they desire to restrict imports to
medicinal needs the Government of India will control export
accordingly. There is no case whatever behind the attack
on Indian opium. It expresses merely impatience at the
slowness with which international action is rendered effective ;
but though it is possible to sympathise with this attitude,
it appears illogical that the Government of India should
be attacked by active spirits in the United States of
America, because they see or think they see their country
drenched with morphia manufactured from Turkish opium.
The curse will not be lifted until Turkey has signed the Hague
Convention, ratified it and put it into force ; until Persia has
adhered to Article 3 (a), which regulates the export of raw
opium ; until production has been effectively controlled in
China, and until Governments have realised that they must
shoulder their own burdens and attack the vice at home, as the
Government of India have done.
38
CHAPTER VII.
THE POSITION OF INDIA IN RELATION TO THE WORLD'S
OPIUM PROBLEM.
In view of the facts that have been related in the previous
chapters, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the attacks
which have been made on the production and export of Indian
opium were based on an uninformed and impatient idealism.
India has been accused of failure to carry out the terms of the
Hague Convention, and of flooding the world with her opium.
It is hoped that the falseness of these ideas has been clearly
demonstrated, but it may be well in conclusion to summarise
briefly the action that has been taken by the Government of
India, and to place the production and export of Indian opium
in its true perspective, a correct understanding of which is
essential if any hope is to be entertained of confining the world
production of opium to legitimate purposes.
The principles embodied in the Hague Convention have
been accepted and acted upon by the Government of India
for many years past. Long before the Convention was framed
India gave a ready assent to assist the Government -of
China in the great task of suppressing poppy cultivation
which that Government undertook in 1906, an assent that
involved a sacrifice of four millions sterling annually. The
sacrifice was voluntarily and willingly made, though the sum
lost represented no less than 8|- per cent, of India's net revenue
at that time, and necessitated the imposition of fresh taxation
in India. This action was taken in spite of grave doubts as to
the possibility of suppressing the opium traffic in China, doubts
which experience has proved only too well founded, and two
years before the formulation of international opinion at the
Shanghai Conference of 1909. Nor did India's co-operation
end with the cessation of export to China. In order to guard
against the smuggling of Indian opium into China, in 1912 she
subjected her exports to markets outside China to a maximum
limit of 13,200 chests, a reduction of 20 per cent, on the normal
requirements of those markets, and a maximum limit has been
imposed ever since.
The cessation of the China trade reduced the Indian export
trade to very small proportions compared with the world
supply. When all importing Governments faithfully carry out
the provisions of the Hague Convention, and as the progressive
suppression of opium smoking by those Governments begins to
take effect, it is possible that they may take still less opium
from India. In view of the fact, wiiich cannot be too strongly
emphasised, that effectual international action on the lines
laid down in the Hague Convention is necessary for the attain-
ment of the objects aimed at by that Convention, the Govern-
ment of India would be fully justified in refusing to assent to a
modification of the Convention in the direction of greater
stringency until the results of concerted and effectual action by
all the signatories have been seen.
India exports no opium to any country that prohibits
imports, she is ready to export no opium to any country in
excess of the amount which the Government of that country
expresses a wish to obtain, and, in order to place the responsi-
bility for regulating import directly and publicly upon the
Government of the importing country, she has followed since
1915 a policy of selling her opium direct to foreign Govern-
ments wherever that course has proved possible. Three-
quarters of the amount exported is disposed of in this way, and j
attempts are even, now being made to extend the system to the
remaining considerable importers of Indian opium. Should
these attempts prove successful, the Calcutta auction sales
would in all probability cease, and the private merchant would
be entirely eliminated. But even as' regards the small quantity
at present disposed of by public auction, amounting for the
calendar year 1021 to 705 chests, the Governments of the
importing countries have the fullest power of control. In
this connection it may be noted that the Assembly of the
League of Nations at its second session proposed that all
Governments should adopt a licensing system for imports and ;
exports of opium and other .dangerous drugs. If this proposal
is adopted responsibility for imports will be placed upon the
Government of the importing country in the clearest possible
manner.
The position as regards the import and export of the drugs
other than raw opium referred to in the Convention was
described in the last chapter, and can be very briefly disposed
of here. The export of prepared opium is prohibited, and none
has ever been exported from India. Medicinal opium is not
manufactured in India, and has never been exported. The
imports of morphia are small and those of cocaine negligible.
No cocaine is manufactured in India or exported, nor is
morphia, except in so far as certain waste products at the
Government opium factory of Ghazipur are capable of being
used for this purpose ; until recently some of these were
exported to England.
The question of consumption of opium in India was dealt
with in Chapters III. and IV. Briefly summarised, the position
is as follows :
The production and distribution of opium is most strictly
regulated from the time the poppy seed is sowil to the time the
opium reaches the consumer. Cultivation, production, manu-
facture, ' transport, sale, possession and use are controlled
with a completeness and precision probably unequalled by
any other country in the world, At the beginning of the
19th century it was the wish of the East India Company
entirely to suppress the consumption of opium in India, but
4983 D
40
owing to the facilities for smuggling opium from the Indian
States and elsewhere, and the deeply-rooted nature of the
habit, it proved impossible to pursue this ideal, and a
policy was substituted which aimed at keeping the consump-
tion within the strictest possible limits by continuously raising
the cost of opium to the consumer. The success of that
policy cannot be gainsaid. The population of British India
to-day consumes annually 26 grains of opium per head,
20 grains less than the probable per capita consumption of the
United States of America, and a very small fraction of the
per capita consumption of other opium consuming countries in
the East.
In India proper, apart from Burma, opium smoking occurs
only to an extremely limited extent. It is strongly reprobated
by public opinion, and the Government of India have done
everything short of absolute legal prohibition to check the
practice. The manufacture of opium for smoking, except by
an individual for his own use, is prohibited ; opium smoking
preparations cannot be bought ; the amount of opium an indi-
vidual can obtain for manufacture into preparations is strictly
limited ; and the amount he can have in his possession is
generally limited to 90 grains. Opium smoking is essentially
a social vice, and the question of making illegal any assembly
of three or more persons for the purpose of smoking is at
present being considered by Local Governments, together with
the question of the practicability of prohibiting opium smoking
altogether. Burma, where opium smoking was introduced
from China, and affects Burmans adversely, presents a separate
problem. Since 1885 there has been absolute prohibition of
the use of opium except for medical purposes for all Burmans
in Upper Burma. The same prohibition has been in force since
1887 in Lower Burma, except for registered consumers. No
new consumers are registered, and the number has now fallen
from 34,000 to 5,405. The population of Burma consists of
12,000,000 people. Non-Burmans in Upper Burma, and non-
Burmans and registered Burmans in Lower Burma can obtain
opium at licensed shops, subject to limitations of amount, but,
a? in the rest of India, the sale of prepared opium is prohibited.
Those who advocate the suppression of poppy cultivation
in India do so on two grounds. First, that the inhabitants of
India are being drugged against their will, and, second, that
India is flooding the world, especially China, with her opium.
Space need not be wasted over the first of these contentions.
It has been seen- that the Government have been engaged in a
struggle to keep the consumption of opium in India as low r as
possible during the last hundred years, and the opinions
expressed by trie Royal Commission of 1893 were described in
Chapter I. If the Government of India ceased to control the
production of opium and prohibited poppy cultivation in British
India, an unregulated supply would at once begin to flow from
41
the Indian States, over the border from China, and from Persia
and the Levant. Armies could not stop it. Further, as
Provincial Governments haye no\v been invested with control
over excise, it may be expected that under the pressure of
public opinion, exerted through the new Legislative Councils,
the policy of restriction hitherto followed will not be abandoned.
It may indeed become more stringent.
It is not clear why the delusion should persist in some
quarters that India floods the world with opium, and that
Indian production is responsible for the morphia epidemic in
China and the Western countries. Once the amount of opium
produced in India and exported is viewed in its proper
perspective, compared with production and export in other
parts of the world, that delusion must immediately vanish.
The legitimate markets for Indian opium, apart from export to
China, took 16,000 chests of Indian opium a year in days when
the China trade was in full swing, and there was no inducement
to smuggle to that country. Now those markets take only 6,000
to 11,000 chests, and will very probably take less in future.
Indian opium is not exported to the United States, and Chinese
opium is sold retail in China at less than the cost of
production in India. Such are the facts regarding the state-
ments sometimes made that India is drenching America and
China with her opium. The production of opium by the
Government of India in 1919-20, including a certain quantity
supplied by the Native States, amounted to 936 tons, of which
643 tons were exported. In 1906 China produced 34,852 tons,
and in 1908, according to an estimate by Mr. Hamilton Wright,
21,887 tons. So far as it is possible to ascertain, she produces
to-day about 20 per cent, of her output in 1906, say 7,000 tons,
or more than seven times the production of India. So far as
Turkey is concerned, accurate information is not obtainable in
respect of total production, but authorities agree that in normal
times the average Turkish export amounts to 7,000 chests
annually, each chest containing 150 Ibs. of opium, rising in a
good year to 12,000 chests. Seven thousand chests of Turkish
opium represent by weight 469 tons, but when comparing
Turkish with Indian opium it must be remembered that the
former contains 12 per cent, of morphine, while the average
morphine content of Indian opium is only 8f- per cent. Seven
thousand chests (469 tons) of Turkish opium are the equivalent
in morphine of 662 tons of Indian opium, and Turkey has not
signed the Hague Convention. Persia, according to the
Encyclopedia Britannica, produced 10,000 piculs of opium in
1907, nearly all of which was exported, and there is no reason
to believe she exports much less to-day. Ten thousand piculs
(594 tons by weight) of opium, with a morphia content of 12
per cent., are equivalent to 838 tons of Indian opium containing
only 8i per cent, of morphine, and Persia signed the Hague
Convention with a reservation of Article 3 (a), which deals
4983 T;;
42
with the prevention of export to countries whose Governments
prohibit import.
China produces seven times as much opium as India ; Persia
exports 30 per cent, more than India, and Turkey in normal
times exports about the same amount as India which is, there-
fore, responsible for less than one-third of the world's exports,
apart from the smuggling abroad of Chinese grown opium.
Moreover, India has signed, ratified and carried out the Hague
Convention, and has gone far beyond what is demanded by the
terms of the Convention in order to safeguard her exports from
being abused, while Turkey has not signed, and Persia
remains outside the scope of the Convention's most important
article. India would be thoroughly justified in refusing to
agree to the modification of the terms of the Convention in the
direction of greater stringency until she is convinced that such
modification will lead to beneficial results. The proposalat
present most favoured by international idealists is to bind the
nations to restrict the production of opium to medicinal and
scientific needs, and an attempt to obtain international approval
of this ideal was recently made by the representative of China
on the Council of the League of Nations. As her critics are
aware, India alone among the producing nations could give
practical effect to such a decision, which, apart from 'causing
unimaginable sufferings in the East, would result in enormously
stimulating the production of opium in Persia, China, and
Turkey. This opium would be sold in thousands of chests
to the highest bidder, and exported without hindrance to
mysterious destinations all over the world. India demands to
see the terms of the Opium Convention translated into action
by others, and would no doubt return an emphatic negative to
any proposal which aimed at suppressing Indian cultivation in
order to provide a scapegoat for the rest of the world, .
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Statistics of British India. Vol. II. : Financial Statistics.
Annual Statement of the Sea-borne Trade of British India.
Vol. I.
Statistical Abstract relating to British India.
Imperial Gazetteer of India. Vol. IV., Chap. viii.
The Report of the Royal Commission on Opium, 1895. Seven
volumes.
The Moral and Material Progress of India. Decennial Reports.
Government of India Despatches Nos. 14 and 28, dated 24th
and 18th March 1921. Published in the Supplement to the
Gazette of India, dated the 17th September 1921.
43
China. Imperial Maritime Customs, II. Special Series No. 13.
(Historical Note on the Poppy in China, by Dr. Edkins.)
Dictionary of the Economic Products of India : Sir George
Watt.
Commercial Products of India. Sir George Watt.
Proceedings of International Conferences and of the League of
Nations.
Colonial Reports : Hong Kong, Ceylon, Straits Settlements and
Federated Malay States.
PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS.
C. 5660 of 1911. Agreement between the United Kingdom
and China.
C. 7052 of 1914. Agreement between the United Kingdom
and Portugal for the regulation of the opium monopolies in
the Colonies of Hong Kong and Macao.
Cmd. 1520 of 1921. The International Opium Convention,
1912, and subsequent relative papers.
China : C. 4735 of 188(5, C. 3881 and C. 4316 of 1908, C. 4702,
C. 4898 and C. 4967 of 1909, C. 5658 of 1911, C. 6876 of
1913.
Miscellaneous : C. 6448 of 1912-13.
China: Cmd. 1531 of 1921. Papers regarding poppy cultiva-
tion in China.
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